Did you make this instructable?

The fundamental problem with the idea of immortality is that all living things are designed to die, and with good reason.

There isn't anything that can completely circumvent the effects of aging; your body will eventually deteriorate, as through wear and tear your cells have to reproduce to replace any cells which have died along the way. Ever since you were nothing more than a zygote in the womb, your cells have been making copies of copies of copies of your DNA, and over time this DNA has already accumulated errors in copying - whether it be from the copying process itself or from environmental factors such as carcinogens, sunlight, or radiation from the universe itself.

These things are unavoidable, and furthermore irreversible; even with hypothetical "future" technology, one would need to find unaltered DNA (impossible) to compare with your current damaged DNA and reset the aging markers (impossible) and repair defects throughout every single cell in your body (again, impossible).

While you can do healthy things to minimize these mutations as well as help offset normal wear and tear, it will eventually come to pass that you will die from the inability to restore well enough to function.

Furthermore, if you could live beyond this impending zero hour, you would have so many health problems that those years would be miserable - a horrific exchange for not having to face your fear of death. Frankly, I'm more afraid of being kept alive when every waking day is filled with pain and turmoil with no end in sight.

The truth is, death is Mother Nature's way of cleaning house. If every being were capable of an indefinitely sustained life, they would have no incentive to evolve beyond their limitations. Plus, the strain all that life would place on this earth would have eventually caused a collapse of life ages ago; without death, the microbes responsible for breaking down organic matter would starve, and from that point a chain reaction would have led to a breakdown of the food chain until everything died of starvation.

Everything dies. Our curse as humans is the knowledge of our eventual fate, but it can be a blessing too. Knowing that your days are numbered can motivate you to live life while you have it - giving you the strength to do the things you want to do now, while you have the health to do them. After all, when you eventually exhale your final breath, your last thoughts will be about your life and what mattered to you, and whether you were a fool for being too afraid to cherish each second of your existence as the gift it truly can be.

Come to terms with it, and you'll have a far happier life than those waiting in vain for a miracle zombie serum.

Besides, once big pharma creates something like that, what makes you think you'll be able to afford it? Medical insurance only has two interests, both to make money; they hope you'll be so healthy you'll never need medical attention or that you'll die suddenly. They can really only look to the latter as a viable way to keep them from paying out.

It's physically impossible there has only been 1 person that did not die, Enoch in the Bible, and that was by God. If you are saved you don't have to worry about dying. And maybe if you are saved the rapture may happen and then you won't die you'll just go to heaven. BTW I'm not trying to be mean, but anyone could die any time.

How about uploading your entire knowledge / memories / personality to a storage medium and then having it transferred to a vat-grown hardware / software / wetware simulacrum of your old body in its prime, or into a cybrid dog, tiger or eagle? Or even into something which has never previously been seen on this earth? How about going to a party and meeting a half dozen more instances of yourself?

If Moore's observation continues to hold, computational ability in a few decades time will by far, far in advance of anything we can conceive of today.

Genetic engineering is still in its infant stage. I'd liken it to computing in the late sixties / early seventies with still a long, long way to go.

The weak point is research into the brain / mind / persona. Today we have incredible ways of observing and mapping the operation of the brain, but still have no real idea of how it works. - what makes you, you and me, me. But who is to say a quantum-leap breakthrough won't happen in a few years which will change all that.

Back at the height of the Victorian era in the UK (1837-1901) a massively successful industrialist pompously declared words to the effect that "Everything which is worth inventing has been invented". Look at what has happened since.

The rider here is that we are still around and able to devote resources to progress and aren't just struggling to survive on a barren husk of a world caused by Man's stupidity or the Earth's natural cycles.

P.S. I use the term 'cybrid' as a portmanteau word of 'cybernetic' and 'hybrid' rather than the specific scientific term, and 'wetware' as the organic / cellular part of a multiple substrate system.

These ideas may come from science fiction, but what is science fiction if not a glimpse of a possible future. In a SF story I read once there is a mention of someone going to their home terminal, checking flight times and booking a ticket. On-line flight bookings . . . in the 1930's.

Well, they are already looking for ways to discover immortality. Once I was watching a show about how scientists discovered that red wine gives you immortality; the only problem with that was that you would have to drink hundreds of gallons of red wine each day...

I don't really remember why red wine does this, I watched the show quite some time ago.

Look after your body - eat well with a wide variety of foods. Avoid or minimise alcohol. Exercise at least 30 mins 4 times a week enough to build up a sweat. Keep you weight within the limits for your build and gender.

All of these will help you reach your expected life span. Starting NOW whilst you have 75 years to go is a good thing.

It is likely, depending on your genetic background, that you can expect to live at least into your 90's or further with a good expectancy of good to reasonable health for most of that time.

Dementia, Alzheimer's, accidents and cancer are you biggest threats. Much research and advancement has been made in all of these areas and it is reasonable to expect further advances in the future.

Your grand parents and parents are a good indicator of how long you may expect to live. Mt Father lived to 91 and my mother to 86 so at 60 I expect to have at least a further 20 or 30 years ahead of me :-)

The good news is as you get older dying generally has less fear attached to it. It will happen Immortality is never a likely condition.

I hate to sound like a jerk, but I don't think there ever will be such a thing as immortality. The human body is quite vulnerable to many types of illnesses, not to mention that aging is one of the very things that makes us human. But, I do think that human longevity will be increased, just look at all the advances in medicine that have come about in recent years.

Think about it this way, no-one will live forever. If it helps, I've heard that taking goji berry supplements have increased human lifespan by as much as ten years. Here's the wikipedia article. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfberry )